SERVING ORGANIZED LABOR IN OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON SINCE 1900
NORTHWEST
IN THIS ISSUE
LABOR
PRESS
VOLUME 117, NUMBER 24
HIGH-STAKES LEGISLATIVE SESSION AHEAD Oregon
labor gears up for big battles in 2017. | Page 6
BOEING TERMINATES UNION PAINT CONTRACTOR
The group of 147 voted to join Machinists in July. | Page 7
Proud to fly union p.2 Meeting notices p.12
PORTLAND, OREGON
DECEMBER 16, 2016
Bait and switch: Trump’s Carrier deal
The man who put his byline on
the Art of the Deal pulls a fast
one in Indiana as tough talk
turns to tax giveaways
By Don McIntosh
“You’re going to pay a damn
tax when you leave this coun-
try.” That’s what presidential
candidate Donald Trump said
about the Carrier firm at an
April 2016 rally — after Car-
rier announced plans to close
its Indianapolis factory and
move production to Mexico.
Union manufacturing work-
ers have waited a very long
time to hear those words from
a presidential candidate. More
than 5 million U.S. manufac-
turing jobs have been lost since
At the Standing Rock protest encampment: Isaiah Barnes of the Sioux nation,
and Jamison Roberts and Steve Hunt of Vancouver ILWU Local 4.
Unions
stand at Standing Rock
The standoff at North Dakota’s cause it’s a big source of union
NAFTA’s passage. The 1,400
Carrier workers, members of
United Steelworkers Local
1999, were to be next.
Trump, like most other
Americans, learned of the
planned closure after Carrier
employee LaKeisha Austin
posted a video of a Feb. 10
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Standing Rock Sioux Reserva-
tion — with Indian tribes and
supporters on one side, and po-
lice and private security for the
Dakota Access Pipeline on the
other – also finds labor union
members on both sides.
North America’s Building
Trades Unions and the AFL-
CIO have come out in favor of
the project moving forward, be-
jobs. But other labor organiza-
tions have declared support for
pipeline protesters, and in Ore-
gon and Washington, a number
of union members have traveled
to Standing Rock to take part in
the massive protest encamp-
ment — a nonviolent uprising
that has united Indian tribes na-
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WORKERS RIGHTS
Instafab settles charges, offers
strikers backpay/reinstatement
Despite that, the strike by a
minority of workers continues.
Making spirits bright
Norman Sylvester and Friends entertained several hundred chil-
dren, parents, and grandparents Dec. 3 at a holiday party hosted
by the Marion-Polk-Yamhill Counties Labor Chapter. The event,
funded by local unions and unionized businesses, is in its 76th
year. The party is held at the historic Elsinore Theatre in down-
town Salem. This year, children sang holiday songs with
Sylvester, a member of Musicians Local 99, watched a movie,
and met Mr. and Mrs. Claus (played by Jack Rusen of Albany
Steelworkers Local 6163 and his wife, right). After, everyone re-
ceived a bag filled with union-made products purchased at
unionized Fred Meyer. Above, program emcee Jeff Anderson of
UFCW Local 555 greets families outside the theatre .
By Don McIntosh
A strike by a group of ironwork-
ers at nonunion Instafab is still
under way 21 months after it be-
gan. Instafab, based in Vancou-
ver, Washington, fabricates and
installs structural and architec-
tural steel.
The strike began Feb. 27,
2015, after company manage-
ment refused to consider a list of
demands five installation work-
ers presented, including water
and dry shacks on every job,
safety training, company-paid
medical and retirement benefits,
and area standard wages.
Instafab responded by termi-
nating the strikers, which is ille-
gal under U.S. labor law. Other
installers and fabrication shop
employers later joined the strike,
eventually bringing the number
of strikers to about 20 in a work-
Instafab striker Will Russell holds up
a check for backpay, part of a settle-
ment approved Nov. 4 by the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board.
force of about 75. The group
also sought guidance from Iron
Workers Local 29 and Iron
Workers Shopmen’s Local 516.
On Nov. 4, 2016, the National
Labor Relations Board approved
a voluntary settlement of charges
that Instafab violated federal la-
bor law when it fired the initial
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